Okay so imagine this…..you’re out tilling the ground and you find what’s believed to be a live hand grenade ! Well it happened. The Mounties say a 43 year old man from the R.M. of Portage la Prairie came into the detachment yesterday with the grenade. RCMP immediately evacuated the building. Police called members of the 17 Wing Explosive Disposal Flight, who came from the city and took the rusty, old device.
City police say a man was injured in a fight outside a Winnipeg soup kitchen. Witnesses say the fight began yesterday morning when a volunteer threw loaves of bread on the ground outside the Agape Table soup kitchen. Then, someone started throwing hot coffee, and then a mug, into the face of one man, who was taken to hospital.
It’s been an incredible summer in southern Manitoba….and yesterday it continued. We hit an incredible 37 degrees above, melting the old record of 36.7 set way back in 1952. But the heat hasn’t been welcome everywhere. The sizzling temps this summer and little rain, have not only browned lawns and sent air conditioners into overdrive, but it’s even damaged foundations of some homes in the city. One contractor says you can prevent that problem from happening by literally watering your foundation in the hot weather.
The province has issued wind alerts for the north and sound basins of Lake Winnipeg. Winds speeds are expected to gust to almost 70 klicks an hour by this morning. Officials say that can raise water levels on shore by as much as a meter….so property owners are being advised to take precautions.
Starting today, Canadians will get the chance to pay their last respects to Jack Layton by walking by his closed casket on Parliament Hill. His body will lie in state in the foyer outside the House of Commons today and tomorrow. A state funeral will then be held in Toronto on Saturday afternoon. Layton sadly passed away from cancer on Monday at the age of 61.
He’s free to go. Dominique Strauss-Kahn should get his passport back today and is cleared to leave the U.S. Yesterday, a Manhattan judge dropped all of the sexual assault charges against the Frenchman and former head of the International Monetary Fund. Prosecutors say they could no longer trust the hotel maid who accused him of attacking her.
Moammar Gadhafi is out of sight….but certainly not silent. In the latest speech aired today by local t.v., the besieged dictator has called on the residents of the Libyan capital to free Tripoli from the devils who have overrun it. Libyan rebels still can’t claim victory, even after storming Gadhafi’s Tripoli compound yesterday. Gadhafi and his powerful sons are still unaccounted for and gunbattles are still raging across the capital.
Here’s something kinda interesting…..Halifax researchers say they’ve calculated a new estimate for the number of different species living on Earth. And, it’s pretty large. In results published yesterday, scientists say the number of species worldwide is about 8.7 million. That’s considerably more than the current known total of 1.2 million animals, plants, fungi and other organisms. If these Canadian scientists are correct, it does mean that 86 per cent of the species in the world have yet to be discovered.
If you have plans on flying east in the next few days…listen up! Hurricane Irene is threatening to become the most powerful storm to hit the East Coast in 7 years. Forecasters say the storm is likely going to strengthen to a category 4 by the time it makes landfall….most likely in North Carolina this weekend. Experts also say the storm could blow into eastern Canada sometime between late Sunday and early Tuesday.
Some folks on the U.S. East Coast say when yesterday’s earthquake hit….right away their thoughts were of an explosion or terror attack. Even the White House and the Capitol building were evacuated. The 5.8 magnitude quake was centered in Virginia, where it shattered windows and wrecked grocery stores. Many Canadians also felt yesterday’s tremor from southwestern Ontario all the way to eastern New Brunswick.
L.A. police are investigating a threatening letter sent to late night t.v. host Craig Ferguson. The letter contained a white powder…which fortunately turned out to be harmless. 2 people at CBS television city where the show is filmed, did have to be held in temporary isolation….until officials realized the powder was nothing to worry about.
